The lunatics moved forward without a hint of cowardice, eager for a showdown. The muscle heads squared up too, cracking knuckles and flexing muscle.
Xender watched, a small, cruel smile at the corner of his mouth. Good, he thought. Let these losers tear each other apart. Whoever wins will be too wasted to stop me when I take the food. Lucy noticed his strange smile and shivered. She didn't want to see them fight.
The nerds stayed where they were, the damn losers only knew how to click keyboards and watch porn, totally useless.
"You think you can take us with weak little scalpels and scissors?" the muscle-head leader sneered, jaw working as he grinned.
"Try me," Sasha replied, calm and dangerous.
Just as the tension reached a breaking point, Kayla stepped forward, voice thin but urgent. "Wait. We can't fight each other. Look outside, we should be uniting against those monsters."
"Bitch, do you hear yourself?" one of the muscle heads barked. "This is food we're fighting for. What are we going to eat if we're all dead?"
"Then divide it," Kayla insisted. "I don't care how you split it, just stop this."
They argued, voices rising, when a new sound cut through the chaos: a scream, piercing and raw. A girl inside the cafeteria had been bitten. Blood sprayed across the floor like a dark tide. The nerds scattered, ducking under tables. Everyone recoiled, the argument dying as confusion took over.
"How did that—?" the muscle-head leader stammered, staring at the lecturer's body on the floor. "He wasn't bitten, was he?"
"He is a Z now," Sasha said flatly, watching the man's hands twitch.
The bitten girl's scream echoed again, louder and the sound drew more Z's from outside. They pressed at the windows, crowding the glass with pale faces and slavering jaws.
"Please! Help me!" the girl sobbed, the infection writhing at her neck.
"Nah, she's a goner," one of the lunatics said, the same bastard who'd shoved Xender earlier. I haven't forgotten you, Xender thought, cold fury tightening in his chest.
Sasha signaled her followers with a quick wave. "Clean this mess," she ordered. "Dissect that Z. And the girl, before she turns, let's see if she still becomes one even if we kill her now."
Lucy felt bile rise. How cruel, she thought.
The lunatics didn't hesitate. Their movements were efficient and clinical—surgical in a way that made Lucy's stomach flip. They decapitated the newly risen Z with practiced motions, then drove a blade into the bitten girl's heart, ending her in two careful thrusts before she could convulse into something worse.
Blood pooled and the cafeteria fell into a stunned, sick silence—broken only by the distant, relentless pounding of the horde at the windows.
One of the muscle heads stepped forward and spoke into the tension. "Don't start a fight. Split the food. Fighting will only cause more bloodshed—and more turning inside."
The leader hesitated, then nodded. For a second the man looked like he'd actually thought things through.
"Chickening out, are you?" Sasha sneered, eyes cold. The lunatics behind her spat and flexed their scalpel hands, ready for anything.
The muscle-head leader ignored her and stalked to the counters. Behind them, the cafeteria staff—young women in their twenties, some barely older than the students—stood frozen, hands trembling. The leader jabbed his bat toward two of them. "You," he barked. "You, give them snacks. Enough to keep them alive."
The poor girls obeyed, handing out packets and trays without protest. The nerds and Xender's group accepted what they were given. The lunatics didn't bother with snacks; they wanted real food. They could see meat in the refrigerators, steam rising from trays of cooked food—something that still smelled like civilization.
For a moment, the lunatics and muscle heads eyed each other. Then the muscle-head leader and Sasha started taking what they wanted, eating with greedy, animal hands. Bones were thrown aside; scraps dropped to the floor like offerings. The others ate what they could, too afraid to complain.
Someone muttered, "What if it brings people back?" as they looked toward the girl who had been stabbed earlier. To everyone's horror, she woke—eyes white and blank like an egg. She was a Z.
"So it can even bring back the dead?" Sasha said, fascinated. She watched the twitching body, then added, "Unless the head is destroyed, you don't stop it. No resurrection. Kill the head. Now we know something."
The muscle-head leader decided, by muscle and threat, that he and Sasha would eat like kings. They piled plates high and ate until they were full, chewing with loud, ugly satisfaction. Nobody stopped them. Nobody dared.
Xender watched the scene, rage building slowly like a cold fire. These bastards acted like rulers—hogging food, ignoring rationing, thinking the world still worked like rules and favors. What they didn't understand was simple: if the food ran out, they'd starve. If they kept eating like pigs, there'd be nothing left.
He tightened his grip on the scissors in his hand. To survive this, I can't play nice and weak, he thought. Only those who fight to rise become kings now. The old world is gone. I won't be looked down on by trash.
Cindy, Lucy and Kayla ate silently, hungrily—none of them protesting, all of them too hungry to fight principles. Around them the new hierarchy settled: the muscle-heads and Sasha's lunatics at the top, everyone else below, bones and scraps for the dogs.
Xender swallowed the bitter taste in his mouth and let the cold plan form. It was about time he showed these bastards who the real deal was.
Xender walked straight toward the muscle head leader and Sasha.
"What's this idiot doing?" one of the muscle heads laughed. The others joined in, followed by the lunatics' twisted cackles.
"What the fuck do you want, dog?" the muscle head leader sneered.
Sasha only smiled, eyes glinting with interest.
Xender stared them both down. "Do you bastards not see you're wasting food? What the fuck do you think we'll eat a few days from now?"
The leader laughed. "Who cares?"
Xender's voice stayed calm, but his eyes burned. "I wouldn't mind if you weren't this reckless. This is about survival, mine included. I'm not starving just because some dumb fuck refuses to do what's right."
The leader scoffed. "And what are you gonna do about it?"
"Boss, let me handle this loser," said the same bastard who'd pushed Xender toward the Z earlier.
As he stepped forward, blood sprayed across the floor.
Lucy, Cindy and Kayla froze—thinking it was Xender's blood. But the truth hit them a second later. The bastard collapsed, the scissors buried deep in his skull.
"This is for pushing me toward that Z," Xender said coldly. "Trash like you only understand fear."
Silence fell. The lunatics smiled—especially Sasha, who looked delighted.
The muscle heads tensed up, gripping their bats.
"Pathetic," Xender muttered, ignoring them. He turned to the leader. "What now? You gonna send your worthless dogs to fight me? Why don't you show everyone who's really strong?"
The idiot took the bait. "Stay back," he growled. "This bastard's mine."
He swung his bat in a blur. Xender sidestepped easily, another swing came—he ducked low, drove a kick into the bastard's gut, then struck his wrist, knocking the bat loose.
Xender tossed his scissors aside and picked up the fallen bat.
"Would you look at that," he said, stepping closer. "Weakling."
The leader stumbled back, eyes wide. "W-wait—"